The next day, as there was no driving lesson, Lily sat at the table, looking through the day's mail. There was a thick envelope, and Lily knew exactly what it was. She wasn't going to open it, because her parents probably wanted to prize the moment and take a picture of the letter. Yes, Lily knew exactly what it was.

Petunia's wedding invitation. Notice how, on the back, it said To Mr. and Mrs. Evans with no Lily Evans included.

"It's here, Mum," Lily announced lazily. Why her sister, the stick-skinny, horse-faced Petunia Evans was getting married to the very large, walrus sized—wait, that's an understatement…whale sized—Vernon Dursley, she had no idea. However, she was not excited about being Vernon's half-sister. It would be worse than driving lessons with Potter, that was for sure.

"It is?" said Mrs. Evans from upstairs. After Lily reassured her it was, Mr. and Mrs. Evans made their way down the stairs. "Ooh! My little Tuney!"

Mr. Evans held the camera. Lily had been right.

"How about you open it, dear," said Mrs. Evans. "I know how much you're looking forward to their wedding."

Only you would know, Mum, Lily thought. She tore open the envelope rather roughly and a large envelope came out, decorated all around with lace and paper flowers. Only Petunia.

"Hold it up, Lily," said Mrs. Evans. "Your father wants to take a picture."

Lily held it up and faked a smile while her father took pictures of it from all around.

"Perfect!" said Mrs. Evans. "That will be this year's Christmas card!"

"Mum, it's not winter," said Lily. "It's not even autumn."

"Yes, but you're never here to take pictures of," said Mrs. Evans. "We can't even take a family photo anymore."

"Just tape a picture of me in," said Lily.

"It's not the same," said Mr. Evans.

Lily was not in a mood to talk to her parents. She was in a stubborn mood, which made her angry, which made her tell her parents that she was going to go take a walk and leave the house for a while.

With her hands in her pockets, she began her walk around the neighborhood. The houses were so…clean. And ordinary. Lily wasn't too much of a fan of ordinary. She went to a Wizarding school called Hogwarts and could perform magic while her parents were big fans of being like other people.

They're just like Petunia, they are.

Indeed, Petunia liked things ordinary as well. She wanted to live an ordinary life that the average human would live, with a moderately nice house and a son. Her husband would make money, sure, and they would be able to get whatever they wanted and needed. And with that long, giraffe-like neck of hers, she would be able to spy on her neighbors, see if they were weird or un-ordinary or freaks, like Lily.

Somehow, Lily ended up at the park that she and Petunia used to play at when they were younger, when they used to get along. Before Severus came into the picture.

Was it even worth it?

For some reason, she was asking herself that very question. Was it worth it to go to Hogwarts with Severus and lose Petunia in the process? Was it worth it to be known as a freak to everyone? And she had lost Severus her fifth year…what if she lost everyone else this year? What if she even lost Cammie?

No, she told herself. I won't lose everybody, and I won't ever lose Cammie.

Cammie was her best friend in the whole wide world, other than Alice, of course. Sure, Cammie was the girlfriend of Sirius Black, but she was the sweetest, nicest, most sincere person that Lily had ever met. She didn't even know why Cammie was friends with Sirius Black.

One of the swings at the park was dangling on one chain instead of two. It gave Lily a sense of unease, even though the tall kid up the street probably did it to show off how cool he was to his friends.

A cool wind blew through the air. Lily shivered and wrapped her jacket closer around herself.

She continued walking and thinking. It was all Severus's fault, it was. All Lily had done was stand up for him. That's all, just try to protect her best friend from stupid James Potter and the Marauders. But, no, Severus decided he didn't need her help, decided to try and act tough, and then he called her a…Lily couldn't even say it in her mind. He called her that awful word, and then begged for her forgiveness late that night.

Well, Lily wasn't going to give it to him. She wasn't going to give him anything anymore.

But why did Severus have to try to act tough? Lily half-wished that Severus would disappear, but also half-wished that he would do something to make up for all the bad things he had done to her.

For some reason, Lily now found herself on Spinner's End, gazing up at Severus's house. Indeed, she had never been inside, as Severus's parents weren't the nicest of people. Lily vaguely remembered how Severus's father had been an alcoholic, and his mother had been too scared to stand up to him.

There was a face in the window. The black hair was all too familiar to Lily. He was staring out at her, watching to see what she would do. Lily almost couldn't move, just a bit too mesmerized by him standing there.

After thirty seconds, Lily got angry, and turned her back on him, and started to walk away. She could almost feel the hurt in his eyes gazing at her retreating back. She turned around once again, flipped him off, and screamed, "Fuck you!"

At least she felt a little better.

Once she was outside of her own house, she saw an owl perched on the roof next to her window. She recognized the owl at once and ran inside to her room.

She let the owl in and untied the letter from its leg. Aha! She was right! It was from Cammie!

Hey, Lils!

Yeah, my parents are okay. They're a bit worried about me staying with Sirius and James, though. I bet they'd rather me stay with you.

I'm so excited to see you again! God, it's been so long! You won't believe what I did to my hair! I died it black!

Ha-ha. Just kidding. I would have loved to see your reaction to that, though.

Call me later, okay? I know it costs money for over-sees calls and all that crap, but I haven't heard your voice in forever.

Crap, now I sound like some mushy lover. Hope you don't think I'm a lesbian now. Ha-ha.

See you soon. Call me. You know my number.

Cammie.

Almost immediately, Lily picked up the phone and dialed Cammie's number. Cammie was right—it had been too long.

"Legront residence," Lily heard the voice of Cammie's father.

"Hi, Mr. Legront. It's Lily. Is Cammie there?"

"Sure. Hold on a second, Lily. Cammie!"

No sooner had Cammie picked up the phone. "Lily!"

"Cammie!"

"Hope you don't mind, Casey is here."

"Not at all. Hi, Casey."

"Hey, Lily."

Lily had met Casey on one occasion. Last summer, the summer before sixth year, Lily had visited Cammie in California and met all of Cammie's Muggle friends. Casey, however, had been the only one who knew about magic.

"You'll never guess who I just saw," said Lily.

"Oh, God," said Cammie. "You didn't just go visit Snape, did you?" Lily was quiet. "Crap, Lily! Don't you get it? He's a future Death Eater! He's probably already working for You-Know-Who."

"I didn't visit him," said Lily. "I was taking a walk and I accidentally went to Spinner's End. And he was just staring at me through his window."

"I hope you cussed him out," came Casey's voice.

"A little," said Lily, shrugging even though they couldn't see the gesture in California. "I flipped him off and shouted 'fuck you.'"

"Go Lily!"

"You're okay, though, right?" said Cammie. "I mean, he used to be your best friend."

"I got over it." You liar. "Looking forward to coming here?"

"Yeah," said Cammie. "But I'll miss my family and, of course, Casey here."

"Well, of course you'll miss me," said Casey. "I'm me. And I'm incredibly sexy. I bet I'm sexier than Sirius."

"Oh, sorry," said Cammie. "I'm going to have to disagree with that."

"Wow, way to offend me," said Casey pretending to cry. "How dare you insult my sexiness! Sirius is probably nothing compared to me!"

"Hey, why were you taking a walk, anyways?" said Cammie. "Death Eaters could have found you."

"Just because I'm a Muggle-born doesn't mean that the Death Eaters are specifically after me," said Lily. "And you take walks in Malibu. Why aren't you watching your back?"

"Because it's Malibu," said Cammie. "You-Know-Who hasn't really reached the states yet. At most he has one Death Eater in all of Cali."

"You're lucky," said Lily. "Do your parents know about him?"

"What do you think I am, stupid?" said Cammie. "If they knew, they wouldn't let me out of the house at all! What, do your parents know?"

"Yeah, right," said Lily. "In their perfectly ordinary life, a dark wizard who wants to kill all Muggle-borns? I don't think I'm going to tell them. At least not for a while."

"Oh! Lily! How's driving lessons?" Casey said. Lily groaned. "That bad?"

"Even worse," said Lily. "Potter decided to take driving lessons too. And he's taking them with me."

"No!" said Casey.

"Lily, James isn't that bad," said Cammie.

"Says the girlfriend of his best friend," said Lily.

"She's got a point," said Casey.

"Lily? Are you on the phone?" came her dad's voice from downstairs.

"Yes," Lily called back.

"Can you get off? I need to make an important business call."

Lily sighed. "Sorry, Cammie, Casey, I have to go."

"See you in a week!" said Cammie.

"Miss you, Lily, see you…I don't know when!" said Casey.

And the tone went dead.

A week passed, with driving lessons becoming annoying and Potter becoming even more annoying. Only in Lily's eyes, though. She was grumpier than she usually was in the summer; these were her only months away from the damn nuisance.

Cammie's flight was due to land at the London Heathrow Airport in the next five minutes, where Lily was waiting for her with her parents. They had made an agreement with the Potter's and, much to Black's unhappiness, Cammie was going to stay with Lily for a week before going to stay at the Potter's.

"I can't believe her parents are letting her stay with her boyfriend," Mrs. Evans said to Mr. Evans. "Completely ridiculous."

"She's only seventeen," said Mr. Evans. "Don't they worry?"

"Mum, Dad, they've been together for long over a year," said Lily. "Relax." Even though I'd much rather Cammie just say with me for the month instead. Stupid Sirius.

"Well, we're just saying," said Mr. Evans. "If you wanted to go stay with your boyfriend in America, we would really have some problems."

"They haven't seen each other in months, they miss each other," Lily mumbled.

"And why are we dropping her off at her boyfriend's friend's house?"

"I don't know. There's a weird situation going on, I think."

"Why don't you know?" Mrs. Evans asked. "Aren't you friends with your best friend's boyfriend?"

"I mean…we're acquaintances."

"LILY!" someone screamed. Lily looked up to see Cammie, who was running over to hug her. "My plane landed a few minutes early! Merlin, I've missed you!"

"Cammie!" Lily hugged her back tightly. "Ugh, I've missed you too!"

"Hi Mr. Evans, Mrs. Evans," said Cammie politely to Lily's parents.

"Hi Cammie," said Mrs. Evans. "It's so nice to see you again."

"It's lovely to see you again, too," said Cammie, her face emanating with joy. She turned back to Lily. "Come on, let's get to baggage claim."

The two started walking towards the luggage belts. "Did you hear Lacey got pregnant again?" said Lily.

"What?" Cammie exclaimed. "No! Wait, with who?"

"Ben. Of course. School whores work together, and all."

"Typical. How'd you find out?"

"She confided in Natalie, who can't keep a secret to save her life. I got the letter about it a few days ago. She's having twins."

"Oh, Lacey," said Cammie.

"Well, hey, at least it's not Sirius's," said Lily, smirking at Cammie, who laughed.

"That would have just made this whole relationship a tad awkward," she said. "Oh, did I tell you about Casey's old boyfriend? I think you met him last summer. Jim."

"Oh, yeah, I remember him. No, what's going on?"

"He keeps calling her house phone drunk at three in the morning asking for her to come over."

"Ooh, that's weird."

Cammie laughed. "Yeah, she's having some trouble keeping her parents from picking up the booty-calls."

"She's not going over, though, is she?"

"No, of course not! Not after he cheated on her and ended their relationship in the first place. She doesn't put up with players like him. Oh! There's my trunk!"

Lily helped Cammie get it off of the luggage belt, and Cammie laughed as they started carrying it to Lily's car.

"I don't like trunks," said Cammie. "Like, they're cool looking and all, but extremely inconvenient for traveling. Stupid Hogwarts."

Lily laughed as they continued to heave the trunk across the street. When they finally reached the car, Mr. Evans opened the trunk so they could jam the luggage in. The four of them got into the car and started on their drive.

"So, Cammie," said Mrs. Evans. "How was California?"

"Beautiful," said Cammie, looking outside and frowning at the gloomy weather. "There was so much sun, and the beach was incredible this year."

"That's good," said Mrs. Evans. "Are you going to miss it for the upcoming school year?"

"Oh, most definitely," said Cammie, giving another look out the window and then concentrating on Lily. "So, when's the wedding?"

"Three weeks," Lily grumbled.

"We've already bought her dress," said Mrs. Evans proudly. Lily looked at Cammie and gagged. Cammie shrugged as if to say, "What can you do?"

Once they reached Lily's house, Lily and Cammie raced up to Lily's room and flopped down on her bed. Cammie stretched and laughed. "Hope you're ready, because I'm not used to the time difference yet."

"How long is the time difference again?" asked Lily.

"Eight hours."

"Joy. You're going to be up until eight in the morning, then, I presume?"

Cammie laughed. "You presume? My, my, Lily, what big vocabulary!"

"Ugh, that stupid driving instructor has gotten to me," Lily grumbled.

"Yeah, Sirius said that James has been charming the pants off that lady," said Cammie, laughing.

Ugh. Stupid Potter.

"By the way, you didn't get to finish telling me how amazing your driving lessons with James are," said Cammie. "So, please, do tell. I'll be up for a while, anyways."

Lily rolled her eyes and began the story, beginning their soon-to-end week before Cammie went to stay with Sirius.

Cammie was due to arrive any minute. Sirius was sitting at the bottom of the stairs at Potter Manor, his knees bouncing up and down from excitement, as they had been for the past hour and a half.

"Sirius, she'll get here when she gets here," said James, making his way down the stairs.

"She might arrive early," said Sirius.

"Or she might arrive on time."

"Lily's coming with her."

James ran his hand through his hair and sat down on the stairs next to Sirius.

"This is the year, I swear it is," said James. "Lily is going to fall for me."

Sirius smirked, his legs still bouncing. "You've said that every year, Prongs."

"Well, hey, if it's not this year, than what year is it going to be?"

"Uh…never?"

"Shut up, Padfoot."

"Just think about it," said Sirius, his body movements stopping suddenly as he turned to look at James. "Maybe…maybe you two aren't meant for each other. Maybe she's meant for the Head Boy of this year. Merlin knows she's going to be the Head Girl. And all you're going to be is the Quidditch Captain."

"You're such an asshole, Padfoot," said James angrily. "We're meant for each other. You'll see."

"Boys!" Mrs. Potter yelled from the kitchen. She walked into the main entrance hall with two letters in hand. She handed both the letters to James and Sirius. "Hogwarts letters just arrived."

Sirius opened his quickly, scanned it through, and pocketed it as Mrs. Potter walked away. James, however, was weighing his. It was heavier than usual, he noticed, and he had been Quidditch Captain last year as well, so he knew the exact weight the letter should have been.

"What's taking you so long, Prongs?" asked Sirius. "Just open the damn thing already."

James rolled his eyes and dumped the contents of the letter onto his outstretched hand. Two badges fell out, not just the one that James had known was coming, but two. He fingered the most familiar one with his other hand and held it in front of his eyes, smiling at his red-and-gold Quidditch Captain badge. And then, he picked up the other badge, frowning slightly as he saw the HB placed on top of the red-and-gold badge, a lion in the background of the badge as well.

"Bloody hell," said Sirius, looking at the badge. "You've got to be kidding me!"

James held it up, smiling. "This is definitely a good sign."

"According to whom?"

"To you, actually," said James. "You just said, 'maybe she's meant for the Head Boy'."

Sirius just stared in shock for a few moments. "You traitor!" he finally yelled. "Who's going to pull the biggest prank at Hogwarts with me this year?"

"Oh, come off it," said James. "Now that I'm on the other side, I can help us get away with it. I can vouch for us."

It took Sirius a minute, but once he finally understood, he hugged James.

"I love you, you amazing stag, you awesome Chaser, you…"

"Stop being gay, Padfoot," said James, shoving him off of him just as the doorbell rung.

"Cammie!" Sirius yelled as he ran to open the door. Cammie was standing in the entrance, just as beautiful as the last time Sirius had seen her, her trunk sitting behind her.

"Sirius!" Cammie said, dropping her luggage and hugging him, her arms over his shoulders and around his neck, his arms around her waist. He held her tightly and kissed the top of her head. Cammie moved her head up and met his lips with hers. Lily, who was standing in the doorway, invited herself into the house and tried not to watch. James came and put his arm around her shoulders.

"Soon, that will be you and me," he said. "Bet you can't wait."

"Oh, I bet I can," said Lily.

"Want to practice?" said James, puckering his lips.

"The day I kiss you will be the day that hell freezes over," said Lily, pushing his arm off of her shoulder.

"You know, I never saw hell freezing over as a bad thing," said James. "I mean, it's hell, isn't it? No one actually thinks of hell as a good thing." Lily rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. The first day Cammie and Sirius met, Cammie couldn't stand him. Now look at them."

"That's different," said Lily. "They had chemistry."

"Actually, it was potions, but chemistry's close, I guess."

"Oh, shut it."

"Well, I bet we're going to have chemistry soon, or potions, whatever you prefer," said James, taking out from his pocket his Head Boy badge. "Look what I got promoted to this year."

Lily stared at the badge in shock. The Head Boy of this year was supposed to be Emmett Freedman, and Lily was so looking forward to getting to spend more time with him. This was obviously a joke.

"Who in their right mind would make you Head Boy?" asked Lily.

James shrugged and put it back into his pocket. "Obviously, Dumbledore thinks I'm special."

"You're special, all right," Lily grumbled. "What about Emmett? You must've tricked him out of it or something."

"Emmett?" said James. "You mean that Ravenclaw, Emmett Freedman? Oh, come on, Lily, the guy's a dumb ass."

"If he was a dumb ass, he wouldn't be in Ravenclaw," said Lily.

"Touché, Jamesie," said Sirius. He and Cammie had stopped kissing and decided to join in the conversation. "Cammie, Prongs here has just been made Head Boy."

"You're joking," said Cammie, almost snorting into her hand. "James? Head Boy? Yeah, right."

"He wasn't even a prefect!" said Lily miserably.

"Dumbledore must really like me," said James, smiling as he looked at his Head Boy badge once again.

A car honked from outside before Lily could come up with a retort. Cammie gave her a huge hug. "I'll see you soon!"

"See you!"

As Lily was walking back to the car, James hollered after her, "And I'll see you at driving lessons!"

Lily groaned as she climbed into the backseat and her parents drove away.